Finished: Bioshock

I picked up the boxed set of Bioshock 1 and 2 a couple of months ago and was so excited to play thought the first one. I got about 4/5ths through it before Halo 4 came out and didn't get back to it until now.

One of my pet peeves about adventure games like this is that when the difficulty ramps up so high and you repeatedly die over and over, you start to forget what you're doing and why you're doing it.

I'm playing Bioshock on the normal difficulty and I'm about finished with the game, when all of the sudden they completely flip the game over on it's head and tie your hands to your own feet. I was happily dealing with harder parts of the game with a couple of deaths here and there when I was acting stupid, but after you reach a major milestone in this game, the enemies are three times as hard to kill and it just becomes an exercise trying to get a little farther than the last time you died in order to make any progress. And, since there isn't a penalty for dying at all, it doesn't make any seance why the game got so hard, so quickly.

What was a game that was interesting and beautiful with great voice acting, level design and flow is now a boot camp in the desert with barely any water. This great game of chess is now just a snowball fight and the other kids have rocks in their snow balls. All of the sudden my weapons are doing very little damage to the generic enemies, alarms are triggering around every corner, causing sentry bots and general chaos to rain upon me and I haven't even gotten to the the part in the game when I'm supposed to be chasing down the last enemy. I'm struggling just to make it to him. That's all good and well in some games, but it makes no sense in Bioshock's context.

Hopefully this experience won't ruin the end of the game for me, like I fear. Bioshock is a well crafted game that is involving and magical. I got to this part in the game really wanting my scripted revenge on the evildoer. I played right into Bioshock's story and it felt good doing it. Now, I just want it to be over with so I can't start the next game and forget all about, what I would consider to be, Bioshock's one mistake: an ending sequence too big for it's own britches.

Update: after finally getting to the last boss in Bioshock and dying once I had to wonder what the idea of kicking the gamer out to the title screen was for. The whole time your playing this game there at no penalties for dying. Was I supposed to stop and start a new game?

85% great game, 10% repetitive dying is pointless and 5% what?

Hey, I think I just invented a new type of review score.

Review: Gears of War - Judgement

When Brian mentioned getting this post-trilogy Gears of War game, that doesn't have anything to do with the main characters or involved the ex-Epic lead designer, I balked at the idea. There was no way I was getting involved with an after thought of a game like Judgement. It wreaked of stink.

Then I caved on release day.

It was the best cave of buying video games I've had in a long time. The best cave of my gaming life was the Xbox.

Judgement has a lot of things going for it and most of those are features and changes that weren't in the original games. People Can Fly brought a lot to the table, being the developers of the single player campaign: the three star system for each level, the declassified mission option to make each level even harder with various things like no lights on or fog throughout the level, and making each chapter of the game narrated by each different playable character. They also created a new system for enemies to spawn different each time you play a level. They sound like small things, but it made the game different enough that I didn't feel like I was playing the same old Gears of War. It was refreshing.

I haven't played a lot of the multiplayer, but a lot of people are complaining about the changes. Now that I've about finished up the main game and collecting COG tags, I'll be moving into the online side of things and making myself at home there.

RAGE and that status of RPG games

I'm about 8 hours into RAGE and I have to say that it's not only the best looking Xbox game yet. That's debatable of course, but no one reads this blog, so I'll just assume that I'm right.

Among the things that I absolutely love about this game there are still flagrant annoyances that bug me about every adventure game in the past couple years.

• I'm getting tired of pressing buttons to talk to people or advance conversations. Let's do a proximity thing that reads a little more into positions and facing people. If I turn to walk away, interrupt yourself and say something like, "...oh, okay. Guess we'll talk later." Or pull a gun and fire a warning shot if it's really a big deal. Let me know you mean business.
• If a game has multiple locales, stop repeating resources in each one. Parts, weapons, medicine/mechanics, games of chance need to be more organic. Not every town has a parts store or weapons dealer. Maybe a town only has a thrift or pawn shop. If a game is popular, show more/less people playing it every few hours. Those two guys aren't playing that game all damn day. I don't care how shitty the apocalypse is.
• Stop making side quests something I start and complete manually. Make something happen to me that I can choose to participate in naturally. I don't want to hit a button. I don't want to be singled out as responsible. If someone runs into me with their car, let me decide if I chase them down or not. That's why nothing ever gets done in GTA games anyway, am I right?
• Stop making me run back and forth. There has to be better ways to repeat use of gameplay areas. RAGE just sent me on a reverse course through a hospital path (and gave me an achievement for it!). You just admitted that you have no game play creativity by doing that. 
• If you're going to use someone like John Goodman and Claudia Black as a voice actor, use him in the entire game. I don't ever want to stop hearing him talk.

I love that RAGE made graphics one of it's highest priorities. I'm a little bothered by three disks, but I completely accept it for the payoff. I also really love the enemy A.I. and how they approach you. The muntants have multiple abilities from crawling fast to jumping off walls and monkey baring the ceilings to come and attack you. It's creepy and fantastic. The Authority soldiers aren't that smart, but I like their shields and willingness to toss grenades. 

If you liked playing Resident Evil or Dead Space for it's creepiness and enjoy Borderlands or Fallout for it's questing and item building, this game is a perfect mashup of the two "genres". I highly recommend it.

Tell Me About Your Games

Okay, you guys just bought Forza 3 and DJ Hero. Give it up. Drop a comment and let me know how they are.

Finished: Fallout 3

After months of playing Fallout 3, I finally finished it tonight. Having not played a role playing game in a long time, Fallout 3's hybrid of first person shooting along with leveling up my character and choosing abilities to customize the experience made it one of the best adventure games I've played since Zelda: Twilight Princess.

Some of the things I didn't like in the game was the lack of polish. But when you consider you can see for miles and then actually go there (albeit ever so slowly), you can't really knock the game for having rough polygons as landscaping. The animations of enemies were also pretty last generation. And, oh, how lame was the voice acting. What did they have, like four people playing a hundred characters?

But overall I really enjoyed the game and it deserved they hype that it got. It was great gameplay tied into a pretty deep customization system. I also thought the multiple choices for my characters dialogue was pretty good. It wasn't blaring which dialogue choices would lead to what outcome and some helpful information was hiding pretty deep in conversation trees.

Though there are many different endings, I have no intention of playing through it again or even downloading any of the new chapters for sale. It took me this long to play through the campaign and I'm still behind on some of the other games I want to play. But I'm glad I played this ground breaking game.

Finished: Halo 3 ODST

It really is about 6 hours long.

But I still really enjoyed every minute of it. And of course, having my favorite type of ending in the game really helped (I won't say what it is). Okay, it's driving. I love game ending driving missions. Halo 3 was my absolute favorite!

All the hype about figuring out the mystery of the what happened to everyone is really a bit over sold. The flashbacks in the game, the levels dealing with your lost squad mates, are fun to play though, but there's no "mystery" to it. It's just revealed to you. And you don't meet up with them until the very last level of the game. I think to have had this Halo game be a mystery game would have been truly fascinating, but I'll settle for tried and true gameplay. And if you read the books, you can kind of see the ending coming, not because it's in the books, but because characters are revealed in the game and the book and you can make a logical connection between the two.

Achievements in this game really play a major role. I could imagine playing through this without giving them a second thought and think the game was pretty standard. Halo games have always had somewhat easy achievements to remember and get while you play (I got 95% of them in Halo 3) and ODST is no different. I don't know if having achievements so closely tied to the natural completion of the game is really challenging or not, but there are quite a few you need to concentrate on to get (ex. X-number of kills with X-weapon). Playing the game through and trying to get some of the achievements makes it a fun challenge, especially with a friend who can help you look for weapons and ammo of certain types and selectively killing certain enemies or whatever to help you reach the goal.

I'm looking forward to spending the next couple of months with this game and going back and forth between it and finishing Fallout 3 until Modern Warfare 2 drops in November.

3 Hour Review: Halo 3 ODST

I have to admit that I was expecting another plain old Halo game with ODST. I hadn't read much about it but I knew a couple of key gameplay details: you're not Master Chief, you can die faster, and you play as different Orbital Drop Shock Troopers. That is so little of the game and only partially true.

You play as one character trying to find his other squad mates after they had a bad drop from space down to earth. You, as the Rookie, stalk around at night looking for their drop ships. Every time you find one, you get to play as them after they drop and wake up. The flashing back and forth give the game an entirely different feel than just running and gunning around as Master Chief. The night scenes are calm and quiet with a few gun fights here and there as the city's A.I. takes control of street signs and traffic road blocks to guide you where you need to go (and of course there is a map). Then when you flash back to your other squad mates, it's daytime right after they dropped and your smack in the middle of the Covenant grunts, jackals, brutes and hunters. Each member of the team has specific achievements tied to their level, which really makes you play each flashback differently. You can also go back at anytime and replay their levels to keep trying for the achievements (they reset every time you leave or finish) and it's really like playing a bunch of mini-Halo games. I enjoy that change of pace from the long drawn out stories from this game's predecessors.

I don't really think that not having regenerative health makes a big difference in the game play. You'll still die just as often as you would any other Halo game. The fact is that if your getting creamed with weapons fire, you shouldn't have gotten yourself stuck in that situation to begin with. Needless to say, I still die often and enjoy it every time.

I really like the Rookie gameplay at night. It's dark and fun and lonely. You really feel like your in a post-apocalyptic city that's crawling with bad guys and you feel desperate to find your squad mates. The daytime sections of the game are filled with teammate chatter (from a few of Firefly cast members and Six from Battlestar Galactica to boot!). Nathan Fillion's character even looks like him.

And we easily slid back into the Halo gameplay controls. The sniperific pistol is back. Flanking enemies in huge areas works really well in co-op. And for the first time, two people can really go along way away from each other to search out ammo and weapons without being sucked back to each other at a checkpoint.

We made it through three or so different levels last night playing co-op and we still have to check out the Firefight mode and play some regular online matches with the new maps. I really did want to stay up all night and play it, but, as the title of the website does decree, pesky work gets in the way once again.

I love this game. It's quite a change from the old Halo games. It's a great addition to my collection as well as a new chapter in the Halo series.

Review: Rock Band Beatles Edition

I was expecting to get another Rock Band game, a third iteration of the same formula, when I bought the Beatles Edition of Rock Band this week, but as it turns out, this game is more of a tribute than a music video game and I couldn't be happier.

Gone are the fans. Gone are the money. Gone are the costumes and the guitars and the accessories. Gone are the characters. Gone are the annoying, repetitive intros to each song. In The Beatles Rock Band game, all the glitter and noise are replaced well thought out nostalgia, real audio clips, and a ton of digital decoupage to honor the band. I don't feel like I'm playing a music video game as much as I feel like I'm taking part in an interactive museum.

Each venue the band plays in is special. They each get their own intro videos with music and graphics suiting The Beatles, a 30-second walk down memory lane. I was most impressed with the 7th venue, Abbey Road, cinematic which ended in an animation that created the Abbey Road album cover. It was beautiful and choreographed perfectly.

Each song is prefaced and followed with a few seconds of actual studio audio when that song was actually recorded. Bits of drumming or guitar practice. A little joke. Some laughing. It gets you in the mood to play. It feels familiar.

But as with all Rock Band games, the magic really happens when you have a full four-person band and, with the new feature added, up to four singers singing all the four original parts to the songs. This, personally, is what makes me want to keep playing. I never grew up with Beatles songs in our house, so I don't really know any of them except from popular culture references and Apple commercials. But now I want to learn all the lyrics so I can play drums or guitar and sing at the same time; something I'm figuring out I have the ability to do pretty well.

This is definitely an under-rated purchase for me. I didn't think I would enjoy it after I bought it and now I'm really looking forward to playing it everyday. Especially now that I realized my son likes to watch me play the drums and look at the tv, trying to figure out what the heck is actually going on with all the noise and movement.

2 Hour Review: Spore

Well after 45 minutes of trying to get Spore installed and updated on my brand new iMac (2008 model), I was still left wanting a little more after playing. And not wanting more playing time, but more substance.

Of course, I haven't read the instruction manual, looked online, or read any forums about what the game is completely capable of. The only thing I've ever seen about the game was one-armed Will Wright demoing the game way back when at TED. I need to watch that again. He is truly a brilliant man.

The most fun really is building up your model as it leaves the primordial goo and makes it out to land. I went from a black, peanut shaped vegi-eater with a spiked rear end for defense to a black ape-like, two legged walking lizard with a beak that sounds like a chirping bird/raptor. The evolution tools are awesome, easy to use and a lot of fun. I suppose that's why the Spore Creature Creator sold so well.

I'm looking forward to digging into the procedural engine of the game and the real meat of the sim. Running around and making friends and eating fruit is fun, but I want to teach my people all I can before I limp back to a two-handed console controller and Wii-mote.

15 Minute Review: Ghost Squad (Wii)

You don't need to play this game for more than 15 minutes to see it for what it is: awesome light-gun shooterness!

Ever since Duck Hunt for the NES, I've wanted to have a light-gun style game for another console. Playstation has had tons of games (Time Crisis, House of the Dead...the list goes on.

So when I saw the Wii had the potential for good games with their new style of controllers, I just had to wait until a good price drop to pick one up. I purchased Ghost Squad yesterday at Gamestop during lunch and finally played it before work this morning.

It's a pretty straight forward shooting game where all you do is shoot and reload. The game moves you around and ducks and covers for you. You pick branches off of each mission, try not to shoot innocent victims and do other things like cut wires of a bomb in the right order within the given amount of time.

This sure isn't a pretty game. The graphics are about PS1 generation, blocky and jagged, just like it's predecessor from the 2004 arcade game. But animations are good; shooting an enemies' leg will drop him to the floor with pretty accurate physics.

I'm also looking forward to the calibration mode, where wherever I point the Wii remote at the screen is where I actually shoot instead of using the graphic reticule floating around on the screen. It might even make me pick up one of those ridiculous plastic shells that looks like a shot gun to make it more fun.

Giving Microsoft a Grade (Xbox Transfer Kit)

Thanks for lending me that Xbox 360 Harddrive Transfer Kit so I could move all my saved info from my 20GB HDD to my new 60GB HDD. But guess what? Microsoft, in its infinite wisdom, made the first of the kits only work with a 120GB HDD. The kit doesn't even recognize the 60GB one.

So now, I have to print off this dumb .pdf file and fax it (at least I don't have to mail it) to get an updated, free one.

If I were to write a final review of the Xbox 360 and Microsoft, I would have to say they stumbled upon greatness and it shows. Bad hardware, infuriating restrictions, greedy pricing and some of the best games I've ever played with the best online system for a console so far. Of course, half of the good points there are for the developers of the actual games, so really Microsoft gets a D+ in my book. Maybe a nice ink stamp that says, "Keep Trying!"

Mirror's Edge

Finally, Gamefly starts sending me the games I want to play. First up, Mirror's Edge. A story of a group of people called 'Runners', who live in the city and deliver packages. They try to stay off the radar, away from the watchful eye of the government and police. Another 'Big Brother is watching' type storyline. The main characters sister is framed for a murder and you are forced to find clues to prove her innocence.

An odd game considering your main objective is not to fight. A very 'Assassin's Creed'esque type game. Running up walls and buildings, scaling ladders, and wall running. Doing anything you can to escape the police. Me, being a huge fan of Assassin's Creed, I thought I would like this game alot. Well, once again, comparisons are not always a good thing. This game is only partially fun and leaves little to be desired. I have only played it for about two hours and am already contemplating sending it back. But the completionist and achievement whore side of me won't let me do it. The combat side of it is not the greatest either. You rarely have to fight enemies but when you do, you have to take them on one at a time or your toast. And the whole combat system is just soso, nothing special at all.

Apart from the story mode, there is a time trial mode, where you run through parts of the story maps and try to beat a qualifying time. This gives a little break from just running away from people, but it's the same spots as in the game and you are only really competing against yourself, so in time, this loses it's appeal as well. All in all, just not worth playing. If your friend had it and you wanted to play it for a bit, I would give it a shot. But I wouldn't waste any more time or effort on it. And as usual, by the time I'm done, I should have about 500 points. I'll take it.

Scene it! Trivia for the masses!

I'm just going to admit it, I had a ton of fun playing this game. Being an avid movie watcher and having an amazing memory, it's no wonder every game played was won by me. Well, I only played against my girlfriend, so not sure how much that counts. But to get on with it, I thouroughly enjoyed this game and definitely think it's worth a rent. Would be great if when you rented it, you could get the four buzzer controllers as well, but if you do just pick this up through gamefly or your local video store your going to have to rely on how many controllers you have laying around. I do like where there is DLC for the game to pick up more questions and types of puzzles. I could see where this would be a good thing cause even after about 4 hours of play, it did begin to get a little repititious. But all in all, very fun. I'll call this one a definite renter. And the great part was I only played it for about four hours and recieved 795 achievement points. Ain't nothin wrong with that.

1 Hour Review: Left 4 Dead

Zombie games, up until now for me, have been slow progressing, sneak around corners, solitary types of games. Resident Evil was my first zombie game on the Sony Playstation. I didn't touch the series again until Resident Evil 4 on the GameCube, some 6 or 7 years later.

When 28 Days Later hit theaters, they changed the zombie genre forever. Zombies were popular again in main stream culture. There were different: fast, mean, traveling in packs.

Left 4 Dead is the first game I've played with zombies like that. Resident Evil games have had zombies that lurch. This is not lurching. It's flooding. Stampeding. Flowing. Releasing through hallways and gates, large areas become pools of zombies that ebb and flow towards you, finding pathways to you. And it's just you, two pistols and a shotgun and three of your most alive friends trying to reach the hospital roof for rescue.

I love this game. It's fast, loud and bloody. It's built for speed and reflexes. My only complaint so far is surprisingly not about the computer controlled friendlies. My problem is with the flashlight. Shown in a dark room, it illuminates only the circle of light within the beam. No glow anywhere else. I guess it could be considered part of the challenge. It's unrealistic, but we are talking about a zombie game.

I can't wait to play this with a few friends online and yell and scream like little girls.

15 Hour Review: Burnout Paradise (Xbox 360)

Well, I have to take almost a complete 180 from my demo review of Burnout. They took a game that was getting stale, two versions past the last one that I owned, and turned it into a co-op extravaganze that really never seems to get old.

My first complaint was the collecting in the game, but it's really almost too easy to do. With 400 gates to crash through, I've found 396 of them without so much as slowing down. The problem with them and the billboards (which I've also only managed to miss a couple of casually) is that you want to stop what your doing to crash through them. It's slightly addictive.

The radio? Easily turned off, turned down, or picked through for the good tracks.

The open world with no immediate event restart? Okay, that is still a pain in the ass. I hate failing in games even if it's not caused by crappy computer opponents. I've just learned to take my failure, dismiss it and move on. How's that for learning from video games?


The only other thing I despise about the game after playing for this long is that motorcycles can't play with cars (for obvious physics reasons) and the Showtime crash mode just really isn't that intriguing. Yet.

The one thing that did truly suprise me was the online modes. I couldn't see how it was fun to just run around and crash into each other. What the demo didn't do a good job of was showcasing the challenges built into the game for groups of people to do. Obviously it's only better if you have friends willing to do them, otherwise your just sitting there waiting for WhosYurDaddy198 to finish the challenge he doesn't even know he's in.

Since I got the game for $22, it was a little easier to sink my teeth into it without much expectation. I turned around and recommended it for one person and bought it for two others (at $30 each). And not to mention the game recieved the Driving Game of the Year title from the VGAs this week. Something I would have been truly dumbfounded by if I handn't have bought it myself.

4 Hour Review: Fallout 3

Against my better time management judgement, I bought Fallout 3 and, sadly, it's a keeper.

There's work to do in the basement. There's painting to be done in the nursery. Vacations are coming for the holidays. Christmas is only two months away. But here I am, ankle deep into Fallout 3, knowing full well that this is the role playing action shooting game I was hoping Mass Effect was last year.

What I've actually come to realize is that I enjoy spending time between areas, sometimes rooms even, manipulating inventory, applying experience points, fixing weapons, applying medicine, and all the other busy work that's involved in roleplaying games. I feel like I have more control over my character, when in other games, I'm more worried about controlling how the game ends.

Having started the game by escaping your home of a fallout shelter for 20 years, looking for your Dad, you immediately get the feeling that finding your father isn't the only thing your going to run into. And I think that's what I'm liking most about the game so far. Your not feed the game ending objective right from the start like 95% of other games. It's open for you to figure out on your own by talking to characters, doing missions for people, and making game altering decisions about your character.

Fallout's setting, post-nuclear Washington D.C., is unlike any game I've ever played. Gears of War had a war time, massive destruction type of feel to it, but Fallout's distraught landscapes have you feeling desperate to find your father, or whatever your current mission is, especially when you can see for miles and not see any refuge. The city is dirty and broken. You constantly wonder if the next life sign you run across will be friendly or not. You want to keep moving. You want to listen to what characters have to tell you.

I easily find myself getting sidetracked sucked into any building that has a door to see what's inside. I tried exploring a picked-clean grocery store, but the rebels inside had other ideas (and bigger guns). Buildings and subways that you can enter each feel like separate challenges. Some have new groups of people to talk to. Some just have giant fire breathing ants.

My complaints about the game so far are technical. Save points are non-existent in big areas. If you forget to save the game yourself, you'll be starting over sometimes 30 minutes back with none of the items you collected, dialogue you previously heard or experience points you had assigned. Also, the targeting system is slightly broken: when I can clearly aim at someone from behind cover, most of the time I shoot the cover instead. Luckily, moving out of cover isn't as detrimental is it sounds because enemies can shoot through cover that you wouldn't think they could.

So with game reviewers talking about spending 30 and 40 hours playing the game, I have a feeling this games going to be in and out of the 360 for a couple months. I can tell I'll be looking forward to the baby sleeping a lot more than for just my own peace and quite. I'm going to want to play this.

1 Hour Review: Mercenaries 2

I loved Crackdown's open-world, car throwing, building jumping and massive explosioning gameplay. I'm almost a sucker now to try any other sandbox gaming that comes into stores just so I can have a fresh experience like it. Mercenaries 2 just came out today so we picked it up in hopes that it would offer some of that same play that made us always want to say to each other online, "Let's go blow that thing up over there next."

The bad, short story: ill concieved controls, glitchy movement on screen, partially computed item physics (I pushed a huge broken concrete wall by walking into it), last console generation character models, last generation terrain mapping, confused timing for narration...if I go any further, it'd just be nit-picking.

The good, short story: two-player, sandbox-style gameplay. Big explosions. Loud guns. Accurate shooting mechanics. Likable character voices. Wide open areas. Decent script writing. Fun "challenge" missions to try. Big explosions. Loud guns. Dishes out Gamerscore points like Sunday lunch at Grandma's.

Overall, it's not an impressive game an hour deep into it. Looks and controls alone, it's not worth $60. I am, however, anxious to see more weapons, more missions, and just where the earned money is going to in the game. I'm saying it has potential to flop as bad as Army of Two, but also soar as high as Crackdown. I'm seeing a lot of similarities between the two games so far.

Forza 2, I know I'm a little late

I have borrowed Forza 2 from Justin for about three months before I decided to buy a copy for myself and give him his copy back. Now that we have been playing together I see that my assists are hampering me from truly performing on the track.

We spent a little time getting a couple cars set up for drift and after hours of tweaking this or that. I’m going to gradually turn off the assists. I know if I change it all at once I’ll get mad and put the game down all together.

Now that I have spent a good time on this game I feel I can give it criticism.

First, is anyone else experiencing the occasional over correction that sends you back and forth across the road like that dog I couldn’t avoid? (the dog didn’t make it, not even a yelp) It happens when you start to drift out or if you ever so subtly get off onto the grass and try to recover. Next thing you know you’re on the opposite side of the track, your front end is smashed up leaving you facing the wrong direction watching you competition wave as they go by.

Yeah, that’s my first complaint.

Second is that stupid 3-something-mile Rattlesnake track. Does anybody really enjoy running on that track? Did the designers think, “man, it would be cool to create a track where you took your high performance car and not be able to break 70 miles per hour”. What the F. Hello, I do this already everyday I go to work. So since you’re so cool that you created a track that recreates my commute, why don’t you just create “SimJob”. So I can play like I’m at work, while I’m at home trying to relax from work. Just think of the possibilities. You could pay taxes, get expensive illnesses, have crappy bosses, and the ultimate 401K baby. Now that would be a game!

Does that explain my feelings about that track? I hope so.

And to all race games out there, STOP GIVING ME 6 VARIATIONS OF THE SAME CARS! Please give me a variety; there are only so many Porsche’s out there. I think you have two of each!

Oh and I love racing those really crappy 58hp cars from Europe. Now when I want to play a racing game, a top speed of 72mph is where it’s at.

Other than that, I really like Forza 2!

Review: LEGO Indiana Jones

LEGO is a toy that has almost unlimited possibilities in gaming. The LEGO Star Wars games were genius. Cute, inviting gameplay elements with only slightly infuriating controls and level design. They sold a crap-ton of copies and everyone loved them.

LEGO Indiana Jones, though, is that annoying cousin that comes over to your house and cons you into trading all your good baseball cards to him for candy and bends all the others.

Everything I loved about LEGO Star Wars is in Indiana Jones, but as sequels sometimes do, the developers tried to take advantage of that love and beat it to a pulp, reconstitute it and serve it to you again. It looks a little different, but when you taste it, it's sour. Beautiful level design is flawed with a bad camera, making jumping around ledges and working with a friend co-op harder than it has to be. Figuring out what to do to get to the next scene is sometimes only accomplished with dumb luck. Long character animations get in the way. Set pieces like ladders and tables are hard to navigate. The list goes on.

I honestly cuss more at this game than I do enjoy it. I used to love playing Star Wars with Nicole every night until we 100% completed both of them. But Indiana Jones frustrates me and, in-turn, makes the game less fun for Nicole. I fight the game every step of the way and just want it to be over. I'll care less if we get the game done much less 100% complete.

This is also making LEGO Batman look less appealing. I'll probably either wait until reviews come out or try to buy it used.

1 Hour Review: Stuntman Ignition

Monday I happened to click over to Circuit City's website to see their Memorial Day sales and right on the homepage they had Stuntman: Ignition listed for $10. So I asked Nicole if they had it if she wouldn't mind getting it for me while she was in town.

I played the original one for for about 10 minutes back when it was on the PS2. So I downloaded the demo when it came out months ago and thought it was a neat idea for a game series: your a stunt driver filming stunts for various movies and commercials, which include jumps, timing coordination, all kinds of 180s and slides, and lots of "threading the needle" driving.

This is one of the only games I can drive from the behind the car view. Most of the time I feel too detached to drive from anywhere else than the hood/bumper views, but this game was made to see all the things that are happening to the car as it drives the the various sets with explosions and crashes.

This game is made to have it's levels be played over and over again. The one thing they screwed up was that it takes a couple of seconds and button presses to replay a scene. If you stop in the middle and select to replay, it's almost instant, so I'm not sure why if you finish a scene that you have get that level's start menu again. But I've definetly played games that tried to hide the fact that perfection is key and really kill you with load times. Gladly, makes starting over again and again a pretty painless experience.

The game looks and sounds pretty good. I had to turn the volume down a little because listening to the staged movie effects were giving my theater speakers a bit too much of a push. The only problem I have with the graphics is that they sometimes take a little to long to show you what you need to jump or crash into. I think this is a game where you should be able to at least try to get every stunt in the first run, but the icons showing you what to do sometimes load a little late and you have to count on memory to get through some levels (which really isn't that hard to do).

I played into the second movie last night and while I had a bit of trouble getting high scores on the first level, this "Dukes of Hazzard"-esque movie was twice as fun. And the director and his cohorts gave off some really rich dialogue. In one scene the director (a Johnny Knoxville type) promises to give you his sister's phone number if you get all the stunts down. His buddies in the background voice to you how much you should really try to get all the stunts because she's apparently hot and might "think she's Asian."

Overall, this is a pretty darn solid purchase for $10. I never would have paid the release date price ($40-60). But for $10, I'll pretty much buy anything that at least has an interesting cover and name. And the opportunity to raise my gamerscore.